52 
GOLD-WINGED WOODPECKER. 
find this department of them too often like the hazy and rough 
medium of wretched window-glass, through whose crooked 
protuberances every thing appears so strangely distorted, 
that one scarcely knows their most intimate neighbours and 
acquaintances. 
The Gold-winged Woodpecker has the back and wings above 
of a dark umber, transversely marked with equidistant streaks 
of black ; upper part of the head, an iron gray : cheeks and 
parts surrounding the eyes, a fine cinnamon colour ; from the 
lower mandible a strip of black, an inch in length, passes down 
each side of the throat, and a lunated spot, of a vivid blood 
red, covers the hind head, its two points reaching within half 
an inch of each eye ; the sides of the neck, below this, incline 
to a bluish gray ; throat and chin, a very light cinnamon or 
fawn colour ; the breast is ornamented with a broad crescent 
of deep black ; the belly and vent, white, tinged with yellow, 
and scattered with innumerable round spots of black, every 
feather having a distinct central spot, those on the thighs 
and vent being heart-shaped and largest ; the lower or inner 
side of the wing and tail, shafts of all the larger feathers, 
and indeed of almost every feather, are of a beautiful golden 
yellow; that on the shafts of the primaries being very dis- 
tinguishable, even when the wings are shut; the rump is 
white, and remarkably prominent ; the tail-coverts white, and 
curiously serrated with black ; upper side of the tail, and the 
tip below, black, edged with light loose filaments of a cream 
colour, the two exterior feathers, serrated with whitish ; shafts, 
black towards the tips, the two middle ones, nearly wholly so ; 
bill, an inch and a half long, of a dusky horn colour, somewhat 
bent, ridged only on the top, tapering, but not to a point, that 
being a little wedge-formed ; legs and feet, light blue ; iris of 
the eye, hazel ; length, twelve inches ; extent, twenty. The 
female differs from the male chiefly in the greater obscurity of 
the fine colours, and in wanting the black moustaches on each 
side of the throat. This description, as well as the drawing, 
was taken from a very beautiful and perfect specimen. 
Though this species, generally speaking, is migratory, yet 
